


Forever In My Mind (Be My Golden Sunshine)

by Ladderofyears



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bordeaux, Boys Kissing, Community: hp_drizzle, Draco lives in France, Emotionally Repressed Harry, Falling In Love, First Time, France (Country), Gay Awakening, Ginny/Harry Broken Engagement, HP Drizzle Fest 2020, Lonely Harry, M/M, Mild Angst, Paris (City), Ron Punches Harry, Sunshine - Freeform, Top/Bottom Versatile Harry/Draco, Vineyard Owner Draco, Wine Connoisseur Draco, holiday romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24512158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladderofyears/pseuds/Ladderofyears
Summary: Harry Potter flees London and a broken engagement. He finds solace in the vineyards of Châteaux Malfoy and finds a love that he could never have expected.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 230
Collections: HP Drizzle Fest 2020





	Forever In My Mind (Be My Golden Sunshine)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the Mods for organising this amazing fest.  
> 🌤🌈🌤
> 
> Title is based on lyrics from the lovely Matisyahu song _Sunshine._  
>  🌞🌞🌞

Ginny was radiant. Ginny was beautiful. Ginny was _The Prophet_ Princess to Harry’s Chosen One. 

Ginny was the risk-free choice, the right choice and the only rational option. Ginny was family, she was familiar and she was comfortable. Ginny represented a future that was already mapped out and well trod. 

Ginny was three children and Sunday lunches and all the safety that a little boy locked in a cupboard had craved with every part of his being.

Harry had tried his best. Harry had been the consummate Gryffindor. He’d been loyal and steadfast and never looked at another person during their two years together. If there’d been secret thoughts and fantasies that had made his stomach twist, and his cock swell, then Harry had battered those away as mere daydreams. They had been an unacknowledged, private part of him that couldn’t ever bloom in the daylight. Too many people would have been wounded. 

Harry was their hero. Harry was their Chosen One. The best of them all. 

Harry was their bloody _Saviour_. 

So Harry had played his role as best he could. He’d been the perfect brother-in-law to Ron and Hermione. A funny, attentive son-in-law to Arthur and Molly. He’d done the Auror training that people had expected of him. 

Harry had slotted into the niche carved out by the world and he’d tried his hardest to make the best of it. Harry didn’t know how to exist in a world where he hurt the people closest to him. A world where he disappointed all the people he cared about. 

There was plenty for Harry to be thankful for. He knew that. Harry knew that he was loved. Knew that he was liked. Respected. Choosing Ginny was the right decision. Choosing Ginny was the only logical choice. 

Ginny was Harry’s childhood sweetheart. His best-friend’s sister. She was funny and kind and Harry knew that wouldn’t ever hurt him. Never leave him. Never break his heart. 

Ginny was everything that the public craved for Harry yet she was nothing that he wanted. 

~*~*~

Ginny and Harry’s rehearsal dinner was a week before their actual wedding. 

The Ministry had wanted to thank their Saviour and his fiancée and had gifted them the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic to hold the blessed event. 

Every surface glittered with lines of enchanted lights. Bouquets of sweet scented flowers patterned the surface of the table. The Ministry hadn’t spared any expense. Everything had to be just _so_ for the glittering couple. 

Harry was their hero. Harry was their Chosen One. The best of them all. 

It stood to reason. Harry was their _Saviour_. 

Harry’s formal robes felt tight and constricting around his throat as he stood up to rehearse the toast. 

All around him beamed the overjoyed faces of the warm, all-embracing family that had welcomed him as another son without question or dissent. The Weasleys had loved him when Harry’s own family had despised him. 

Harry couldn’t do it. 

He placed the flute of champagne that he was holding down onto the tablecloth. The words of his address, each so carefully written, felt as hard and as unwieldy as rocks locked in his throat. 

Harry couldn’t do this to Ginny. He couldn’t marry her. She deserved a husband that could give her his whole heart. She was a good person. She deserved far better than a life that was based on a lie. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said afterwards. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said to Arthur, appalled at the bold heartbreak in the older wizard’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said to Ron, a trail of hot, sticky blood running from the split lip where his best-friend had punched him. Harry knew he wouldn’t heal it though. He deserved the pain. The ache and the swell of it felt genuine in a way that nothing had in weeks and Harry felt glad of it. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry repeated until the words began to lose all of their meaning. 

Hermione was bewildered and she stared at Harry like she hadn’t ever seen him before. “None of us understand. You always seemed so happy. This was the life that you always said that you wanted. Whatever are you going to do now Harry?”

~*~*~

Harry took a Portkey to Paris the next day. 

He knew full well that it was a complete whim. It was an absurd choice based on images of soft sunlight rippling over the Seine and the feeling of heat rising from the cobbles. Harry imagined the fragrance of coffee and croissants from little corner cafes and the sound of summer rain tapping gently thin glass windows. 

Paris was a city for lovers, a city for romance and Harry felt his belly coil at the thought of both. He’d had precious little of either in his twenty years on the Earth. 

Harry’s life and his choices had always belonged to other people. To Voldemort. To Dumbledore. To Ginny and to the Weasleys. Now though, his future was unwritten. It felt intoxicating and terrifying but Harry held the idea next to his heart. 

Every plan that Harry had tried so very hard to follow had come unravelled. He’d never lived like this before, without itinerary or agenda. For the first time in his life Harry had no idea what came next.

But Paris was a disappointment for Harry. The roads were tarmacked and the bristling, bustling crowds far too similar to the London that he’d left behind. The sun was blistering and the stink of the acidic traffic fumes took Harry’s breath. Despite the different language and the different fashions the Parisian wizarding district felt cloyingly familiar and he could still feel the stares roll over his skin. 

After two days Harry flooed south to Bordeaux when he spied his name on the front of the _Oracle_ newspaper. The last thing Harry wanted was to be found by the bloody _Prophet_ before he was ready to be. 

Bordeaux soothed some of the rough edges of Harry’s soul. 

The river Garonne thrummed gently through the centre and the light scent of lavender tickled his nose from where it grew in bunches at the side of the road. 

Bordeaux felt intimate and enclosed in a way that Harry had never experienced before. The stones of the ancient city intermingled with the present and Harry felt a sense of peace. He spent his afternoons sipping a fruity red wine in the single cafe in the magical quarter and watching the world drift slowly by. If anyone recognised Harry then they didn’t introduce themselves. 

~*~*~

Only on his third day in Bordeaux did Harry decide to look at the map in the Square. 

_Mont-de-Marsan_. Harry saw the words on the map and a compelling chill ran through his body. Mont-de-Marsan. That was where Harry needed to go. 

A sudden certainty seized hold of the wizard, more powerful than a charm and before Harry could examine his motivations he had walked into the tiny floo office. “Mont-de-Marsan?” Harry asked through his translation spell. 

The crooked old wizard behind the ticket grate didn’t look impressed so Harry tried once more. He pointed to the map held in his hand. “Is there a floo to Château Malfoy? The vineyard owner?” 

The wizard snorted in derision at Harry’s request. 

“ _Non_. If you want to visit Monsieur Malfoy then you’ll have to take the Muggle bus. Over an hours trip, mind!” He narrowed his eyes, really looking at Harry for the first time. “And the young Monsieur might not see you when you do arrive.” The old wizard made a small _tsk_ at the side of his mouth and shook his head. “Keeps himself to himself does that _jeune sorcier_. Always holed up at his Château. He never visits the city. You might have a wasted journey.”

Harry was willing to take that chance. 

He took the details of the bus from the ancient old floomaster and left the shadowy doorway to walk into the heat of the midday sun. Harry traipsed out of the magical side-streets and onto the main Muggle _grand-rue_. 

The heat was getting more oppressive with every minute that passed and Harry began to feel some of his confidence start to deflate. He adjusted his wandless cooling spell as the bus arrival time came and went. 

Perhaps the old wizard was right. Maybe this _was_ a fool’s errand. Freedom to make your own choices came with the freedom to make mistakes. Harry thought back to England. Had he have stayed in London then Harry knew he’d have been up to his shoulders in wedding suit fittings and last minute chaos by now. He’d have felt more trapped than a Ridgeback in a cage. 

As the minutes passed Harry did his best to dissuade himself of his ludicrous quest. 

Draco had made a life for himself in Mont-de-Marsan. His wines were well known in the Muggle and the magical worlds alike, but the wizard himself was known to be reclusive and hadn’t been seen on English shores since his trial. Draco had no rational motive to want to see Harry and no reason to invite him into the Malfoy Château. 

Then, just at the very moment that Harry was about to give up and trudge back to the hotel that he’d been staying in utter defeat, the bus pulled up to the dusty verge. 

“Thank Merlin for small mercies,” Harry whispered to himself as he got onto the bus. He fumbled for the right number of Euros with clumsy fingers and asked for a return ticket for the Mont-de-Marsan stop. He pointed to the laminated map pinned to the wall.

The Muggle bus driver rolled his eyes at Harry’s appalling French before he hustled him onto a seat at the back of the bus. “ _Merci_ ,” Harry muttered and he stared out of the window. He made the decision to stay awake and watch the undulating countryside pass by his window. 

Harry didn’t make ten minutes. The heat of the day and the mild vibrations of the bus had him dozing before he knew it. Harry only awoke when the bus rolled over a pothole and he lurched to the right. He blinked his eyes into focus and looked down at his wristwatch. _Circe_. He’d been asleep for fifty-five minutes. 

Harry yawned. He wiped a hand beneath his glasses before throwing his satchel across his shoulder. 

Harry felt nervous and awkward. Skittish nerves jangled in his hands and feet. The Malfoy Château had to be the next stop. Harry ran the bell, stood up and made his made his way to the front of the bus. It juddered to a halt a few metres down the road and Harry nodded at the sign at the side of the road. “Est-ce le vignoble?” Harry asked, each syllable ungainly and uncomfortable in his mouth. “ _Le vignoble Malfoy?_ ” 

The driver nodded and Harry hopped off the bus. The roads here in Mont-de-Marsan were rough and rutted and the compacted mud beneath his feet was cracked by the midsummer sun. 

Bees buzzed lazily in Harry’s ear and he crossed over the road. There was a wrought iron gate there, ancient and worn. It opened up to a furrowed track that led up through tidy lines of grape vines. Even if _Sanctimonia Vincet Semper_ hadn’t been carved into the metal, the ornate words surrounded by a rough image of a snake, Harry would have understood that this was a magical property. As he pushed open the creaking gate Harry felt the wards of the building quiver against his skin. 

The magic was powerful, gnarled and old but as he stepped over the threshold Harry didn’t feel unwelcome. 

The scent of the vines was sweet as Harry made his way along the path. The Malfoy Château was decrepit, its once glorious facade frayed by time. The grey stone glowed lightly in the afternoon heat and swallows circled overhead as Harry made his way forward. 

This wasn't the cosseted existence that Draco was born and bred for but then Harry supposed it was a vast improvement on life in London. The Malfoys had been vilified after the War. The family had been social pariahs that had fled speedily back to France as soon as the Manor had been sold and the contents of their vaults seized and redistributed. 

In the long two years since he had last seen Draco, Harry had imagined this moment time and time again. Harry had imagined laying into him, punching him, and drawing blood. He’d imagined drawing his wand and hexing him.

But now that Harry was in France he knew that he wouldn’t do any of these things. All Harry did was ring the doorbell and wait. Maybe Malfoy wouldn’t even be here at all. Perhaps this was nothing but a merry dance. A young man’s folly. 

“Merlin, Potter.” Draco said as the blond wizard opened his door wide, his grin genuine and amused. “I thought you were _supposed_ to be a wizard. It’s the hottest day of the summer. You’ll make yourself ruddy poorly if you don’t use a sun-repelling charm. “Have you come far? And drank plenty of water?” Draco stood back, and motioned Harry to step forward. “I don’t stand on ceremony here,” Draco said. “Are you going to come in?”

~*~*~

Draco served Harry with a glass of wine during his dinner. It was a deep red, rich and opulent, and it glinted nearly purple in the rays of the setting sun.

“A bottle from the first year we bottled our own here. Beautiful weather makes for the perfect vintage,” Draco commented, rolling an inch of the Cabernet Sauvignon around his glass slowly. “It’s fanciful but I think you can taste the heat and the earth on your tongue.” Draco sipped lazily and then he smiled. “Listen to me. Only twenty yet I talk like a wizard of twice my years. I don’t get many visitors here at the Château, Potter. You’ll find I’m a little out of practice with the social niceties.”

Harry let a sip of the wine sit in his mouth. It felt heavier than the wines he was used to, smokey and spiky. He could taste currants and a subtle hint of vanilla. 

“I don’t know,” Harry replied. “I’m not a wine drinker really. I’ve never tried enough to know… Always been a beer drinker or Firewhiskey at a push.” He held up his glass in tribute to the other wizard. “This, though? I like it. It has the loveliest aroma? Like _oak?_ Reminds me of the restricted section in the Hogwarts library.”

Draco laughed kindly at Harry’s words. “That’s from the wooden barrels we store it in,” Draco said. “Nothing but traditional here. I’m winemaking precisely the same way that we Malfoys have for a dozen generations.” He took another mouthful and leant back in his chair. “But I’m chuffed that you like it, truly. You’re a wizard of taste. What shall we drink to?” Draco reached over and held his glass next to Harry’s own. “Defying _The Prophet’s_ expectations?”

Harry winced a little at that comment. “Let’s drink to new beginnings instead,” Harry replied. “I can’t bear to think of the headlines I’ll read when I return to England.”

“To new beginnings then,” Draco said, chinking his glass against Harry’s own. “Cheers.”

The ringing was sharp and clear and Harry felt it echo over his sunburn skin. 

Outside he could hear the clicking of grasshoppers in the vines but otherwise the Châteaux was silent. The quiet felt like a balm for his soul. So much of Harry’s life had been people clamouring for his attention and telling him how to exist. Telling him how to live his life. 

The Malfoy Château felt like a haven. For the first time in a very long time, Harry felt like he could just _be_. 

Hours later, when the two wizards were sat on the porch enjoying the relative cool of the evening, Harry decided to brave the question that had ghosted behind his lips since the first moment that he had arrived in Mont-de-Marsan. 

“Why are you letting me stay here?” Harry asked carefully. “You detested me at school. Left England without a backwards bloody glance. It was as if you ceased to exist.” Harry took a slow sip of the second glass of wine that he was nursing. “Yet you welcomed me into your home without hesitation. You could have told me to sod off.”

“That’s all true,” Draco smiled. “But I read about your broken engagement. Even in Mont-de-Marsan I still have a few friends Potter. People who keep me informed about these things… That was a brave choice you made.” He took a slow swallow of his own wine and found Harry’s eyes with his own.

“Oh yes?” Harry prompted, raising his eyebrows behind his glasses. “There’s a fair few in England that would disagree. Ron for one.” Harry fingered the scab on his lips and felt the familiar ache of having hurt his loved ones. “The other Weasleys. The Ministry. Ginny.”

“It takes a lot of courage to defy the life that others have that decided they want you to live,” Draco countered. “I admire that… More than any of your other exploits if I’m being truly honest.” Draco’s words were light but there was something hidden behind his smile that Harry couldn’t read. “I’m a lot of awful things, Potter but I’m not about to let down a fellow wizard in distress.” 

Draco smirked and the moment was broken. “Would you feel better if I set you to work in the vineyards with me, collecting the grapes and spelling away the blight?” he teased. “I think I’d enjoy the sight of you sweating under the midday sun. You never know. I might even bring you a glass of cold water if you worked especially hard.”

Harry protested, laughing at the mental image of the pair of them working together under the sunshine, their clothes sweaty and their hair matted with dust and debris. Draco’s nose would probably get a little burnt despite all the sun-repelling charms he would insist upon and their fingers would be soon be sticky from the lush fruit that drooped from the vines. 

Draco laughed too and the two wizards tapped their glasses together once more. 

~*~*~

Harry slept dreamlessly that night, his belly full of Draco’s wine and his wonderful Coq Au Vin. 

When the morning arrived he awoke to the morning rays of sunshine streaming in through the thin cotton of the curtains. Dust motes danced in the air and Harry pushed down the summer quilt over his nude body. The material of the sheets was soft napped cotton and it was scented faintly of roses. 

The rest of the day wide open and empty and Harry basked in the freedom of it. There was a sonorous, heavy feeling in his head, like the effects of his wine haven’t really faded but Harry wasn’t the least bit hungover. He felt relaxed, pleasant and somehow more comfortable in his own skin than he could recall feeling for a long time. 

With a small, muted sigh Harry pulled himself his feet and donned the clothes the day before, spelling away the creases and Scourgifying away the slight aroma of dust that still clung to the material. 

He followed his nose, trailing the scent of frying bacon and the sizzle of butter in the pan to the kitchen. When Harry quietly opened the door it was to the delightful vision of Draco cooking him breakfast. Draco looked far more domestic that Harry could even have envisioned. His blond hair was pulled back into a messy braid that trailed over a shoulder and he wore a soft tee-shirt with a faded image of a Bowtruckle printed across the chest. 

Harry watched as Draco took a spatula and prodded a sausage, eliciting a hiss that made him jump backwards. 

Harry didn’t like to disturb the scene. Draco looked happy and peaceful as he moved over to the coffee-pot, humming the words to a Celestina Warbeck hit from a dozen years before. 

Only when Draco almost knocked over the milk did Harry intervene, righting the bottle with a speedy spell. Draco flinched, startled by the sudden magic and he looked over at Harry with wide grey eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, moving the milk away from the edge of the table. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. I should have knocked before I came in... I don’t know where my manners have gotten to.” Harry felt a red flush of shame colour his face. He wasn’t fibbing. In his mellow morning elation Harry had wandered into the kitchen like he was back at Grimmauld Place and owned the place. “That was rude of me.”

“Merlin,” Draco complained, his own face pinking with matching embarrassment. “I wasn’t expecting to find you stood behind me there. You gave me quite the fright Potter!” 

The blond wizard pressed a hand into the middle of his chest, feigning shock but Harry was gratified that there wasn’t any real heat in Draco’s words. It seemed his infraction wasn’t bad enough to ruin the tentative good mood between Malfoy and himself. Draco waved towards the coffee-pot. 

“Help yourself,” he said, summoning another mug from the cupboard with a wave of his wand and handing it to Harry. “Everything looks good here,” Draco continued, nodding at the frying pan. “Pass me a couple of plates over would you? Breakfast is nearly done.”

“You’re very domestic,” Harry teased, doing as he’d asked before pouring out a coffee. “I’d have thought that the great Draco Malfoy would have had an army of Elves working hand and foot to bring him his food. Yet I see that you’re quite able to fend for yourself.”

Draco plated up two breakfasts and the pair sat down to eat at the scratched mahogany table. 

“Getting by by myself isn’t terribly hard,” Draco explained, prodding a fried egg and spilling rich yellow yolk over his toast. “I do employ a few of the local Elves but that’s mostly harvesting and bottling work. I do much prefer the independence here.” Harry watched as Draco ate a mouthful, chewing elegantly before he spoke again. “After the War I was forced to fend for myself.” He smiled, his face lost in a dozen memories. “Mont-de-Marsan was my sanctuary. It wasn’t easy at the start… I mean, you can see that much for yourself! The Châteaux wasn’t far from derelict when I arrived back here. Still, it’s been worth it. Getting away from the judging glares of London was the making of me.” 

The two wizards ate the rest of their breakfast in a companionable silence. Even though the hour was early the day was already warm and Draco opened the windows to let in the insufficient breeze. 

“I’ll tidy up if you like,” Harry said when he’d finished eating. “Do the housekeeping spells. I won’t make a mess, promise.” He laughed. “I’m domesticated too.” 

Draco nodded in agreement and Harry was left to marvel at how he felt more at home here in Malfoy’s ancestral home than he ever had with his fiancée next to him. 

The kitchen here was old fashioned, even tatty. It was certainly nothing like the sleek modernity that Harry had installed at Grimmauld Place but Harry couldn’t have cared less. He felt secure at Châteaux Malfoy in a way that he never had at home. 

~*~*~

That evening, Harry drank far more than just his two glasses of the night before. 

Their day had been long and exhausting, far harder work than Harry was used to and his muscles ached and throbbed. Harry’s hands had been covered in tiny scratches from the vines but Draco had passed him a bottle of Dittany with a wry smile. 

“You’d get used to it,” Draco had said, showing Harry his own roughened palms. “Look at mine. _Hardly_ the hands of an aristocrat any more.”

Harry felt the world start to blur a little on his third glass. By what he thought was his fourth Harry had stopped counting. Staying sober didnt’t seem to matter as much in Mont-de-Marsan. 

There wouldn’t be a bitchy editorial the next day alleging their hero had alcohol problems if he was seen out with with a glass in his hand. There wouldn’t be Robards, his face purple with fury, screaming the odds and telling Harry how the Auror Department needed to be above repute. 

All that mattered was the rich sweetness of the wine on his tongue and the million stars that filled the sky above them. There was a particular luminosity to them and Harry fancied that they had been put there simply for Draco and he to enjoy. The two wizards lay on a blanket on the lawn, relishing the cooler air of the night. The only light was the subtle Lumos of their wands. 

All that mattered here was the way that Draco’s hands moved as he emphasised a point. 

All that mattered were the small lines beside his grey eyes when Draco laughed. 

All that mattered was the long sinewy muscles of Draco’s tanned arms and the way his lithe hands curled around his wineglass. Harry was fascinated by the other wizard’s mouth as he took small sips. Draco’s artful tongue flicked out, licking his thin red lips and Harry wasn’t sure that he could stop staring. 

“You’re a handsome man, Harry Potter,” Draco said, his voice a warm rumble as he poured out the last few drips from the bottle into Harry’s glass. The blond wizard had already levitated the remains of their picnic back inside the Châteaux. “A handsome man that just so happened to arrive at my doorstep. Paris, then Bordeaux and now Mont-de-Marsan. _Mmm_. One might even think that you were looking for something. Looking for something that you couldn’t find in London.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat up at Draco’s words. Harry remembered the thrill that coasted through his body at the mere sight of Malfoy Cabernet Sauvignon in the Diagon Food Emporium. He remembered the basic French lessons that he’d practised secretly at his desk at the DMLE. 

Harry collected up all the threads of his courage, for in that single moment, looking into the soft, gauzy eyes of Draco Malfoy was more terrifying than facing down a dragon. 

“Tell me Harry,” Draco murmured. “Do you believe in coincidence?” He laughed quietly and the noise made Harry’s belly coil with sudden aroused expectation. “You see, I’m not sure that I do.” 

“I believe in luck,” Harry whispered in return. A fission of magic prickled the air and the space between the two wizards felt heavy with tension. This was so far out of his experience that it might have come from the pages of a novel. While he was sat here, the only noise around them the soft hitch of Draco’s breath, Harry didn’t feel like the _Chosen One_. Here, Harry was nothing but a man, vulnerable and defenceless. “I believe in luck,” Harry repeated. “Luck brought me to France. To Bordeaux-”

“No such thing as luck either,” Draco replied, ghosting a hand over the curly hairs of Harry’s forearms. The blond’s fingers were nimble and Harry felt his skin goose bump under his touch. 

The two wizards were sat so very close now. Harry could see the graceful line of Malfoy’s eyelashes in the flickering shadow. He could see the thin tendons of Draco’s hands and the jut of his Adam’s apple. “No luck. No coincidence. All we have in our lives are _choices_ , Harry. Choices and the courage to make the correct ones. And I believe that you’ve already made yours.”

“Spoken like a true Gryffindor,” Harry said quietly. He closed the last piece of space between the two men and brushed his lips against Draco’s own. They were pliable, wine-sweet and they opened ever-so-slightly, more tantalisingly erotic than anything else that Harry had ever experienced in his short years on the Earth. 

The hardness of Draco’s jaw made his belly judder with arousal and the rasp of his stubble against his own was exhilarating in its rightness. Draco’s kisses were everything that Harry hadn’t ever known that he had wanted. 

Draco’s kisses tasted like freedom. Harry pressed a fluttering hand around the nape of Draco’s neck and he pulled the other wizard closer, deepening their embrace. Harry wanted to make their kiss into something real. He wanted to make their kiss undeniable. 

Draco was a stranger to him still but their kiss, shared under the sultry heat of a foreign sky, was the most profound moment of his short life. 

“ _Choices_ ,” Draco breathed into Harry’s mouth. Harry kissed the word out of Draco’s lips and took it inside of himself. Harry wanted to be as brave as his reputation presupposed he was. 

“I’ve never done this before,” Harry murmured, breaking their kiss. His voice was tentative and raw and his heartbeat raced in his chest. “With a man, I mean… I’m not experienced, Draco. I don’t want to be a disappointment… Don’t want to let you down.” 

Draco only smiled at that. “Me neither,” he replied, pressing a soft kiss to Harry’s cheek. “Apart from the vines there’s little in the way of company here. Let’s find our way together.”

~*~*~

“You taste delicious,” Draco murmured into Harry’s ear, halfway between the garden and the blond’s bedroom. The short journey had been punctuated by a dozen kisses and a dozen whispered endearments. “I can taste the heat of the day burnt into your skin. Taste your _sweat_. Taste the dust of the vineyard.”

“ _Mm_ ,” Harry rumbled, wrapping his arms around Draco’s slender waist. “You talk like I'm one of your finer vintages, Malfoy. I taste like _you_.”

Harry’s reply was rewarded with another, harder kiss and he felt the pull of Draco’s hands at the hem of his shirt. 

Within moments his top had been tugged over his head and kicked carelessly across the room. Draco’s own tee shirt followed without a second of hesitation. Their flat, muscular torsos pressed against each other then, and their two bodies were one long line of searing heat. 

Harry could feel the thrum of Draco’s pulse beneath his scarred chest and he felt all the words in his brain Disapparate like they had never existed. Everything but Draco’s name had been burnt out of by the wizard stood before him. All that Harry could think about was the caress of Draco’s hands and the jackrabbit heart that raced under his silky skin. 

London felt like it didn’t matter now. _The Prophet’s_ capricious opinion didn’t matter. The crashing disappointment of his friends and loved one didn’t matter. England, in all its grey misery didn’t matter a single sickle. 

Here, in a dilapidated Châteaux in Mont-de-Marsan, Harry knew that he had found everything that mattered. He held it in the sphere of his arms. 

~*~*~

When Harry awoke in the middle of the night he was so closely entangled in a mess of Draco’s limbs that there’d have been no getting out of the bed even had he have wanted to. 

Harry peeked over at the face of his sleeping lover. In his slumber Draco had a childlike innocence to his features and he snored gently, enmeshed in a dream. 

The two wizards were nude above the sheets, their bodies still sheeny with sweat and sticky from their lovemaking. Harry traced his finger down the lines of Draco’s sharp clavicle. The blond wizard’s skin was flawless but for the raised, red stripes of the Sectumsempra scar that had torn open his chest.

Harry wondered whether he was being foolish. Whatever was he doing, sharing bed and body with Draco Malfoy? Their history was so ruinous, so destructive and catastrophic. The evidence of that was below his fingertips, raised and rough, a slice through Draco’s otherwise unblemished skin. 

Mont-de-Marsan was an existence scratching by on the very edge of wizarding society. Mont-de-Marsan was hard, hot work under a baking sun. Harry thought of the return bus ticket in the front pocket of his satchel. He thought of the Portkey back to London that was booked to take him home in less than a week. 

What was he doing, sharing his bed and body with Draco when he knew that he’d have to leave so very soon? Harry was so caught up in the coiling snarl of his thoughts that he didn’t realise that Draco’s grey eyes had flicked open until the other wizard spoke. “I don’t need to be a Legilimens to hear you thinking,” Draco murmured, his voice roughened from sleep. He snaked his arms close around Harry’s middle and rested his head on Harry’s shoulder. “You should go back to sleep.”

But Harry didn’t want to sleep. 

Harry didn’t want to think about London, or his job or the friends that still seethed with anger. Harry didn’t want to think about all the threads of his life that he had abandoned. He slid his body around so that it faced Draco’s own and he took the wizard’s chin in his hand. He tilted it back for a kiss. 

“I don’t want to sleep,” Harry whispered, taking hold of his wand. He cast a cooling spell over their naked forms. Harry rolled a finger over Draco’s nipple, enjoying its reactiveness and how it hardened under his touch. “Make love to me again,” he asked. 

~*~*~

Draco’s bedroom was clean and sparse, the furnishings simple. Draco made them both a mug of coffee as streams of morning sunshine shone through the windows and warmed up the tangle of both of their bodies. 

Draco had planned for them to work in the vineyard in the early hours of the day, before the sun was too onerous but the pair of them got far too distracted to leave the bedroom. 

The sight of Draco’s rumpled mess of bed-hair, and the salty taste of his hipbones on his tongue was intoxicating and Harry began to lick downwards, the tiny flicks of his tongue catching the taste of Malfoy’s musky male skin. It set his heart thudding. 

There was a look in Draco’s hooded eyes that echoed that first day. _New Beginnings_. That had been Draco’s toast, holding his wineglass in those long lissom fingers of his. This didn’t feel like a beginning though. This felt like a fulfilment. As they made love, every one of Harry’s nerve endings felt like they were on fire. Harry’s magic was rolling off him in rapid, uneven bursts. 

This was what being alive truly felt like and Harry couldn’t get enough. Draco’s mere presence had triggered something powerful in Harry; something that could no longer be contained. Fucking Draco was everything that Harry had never allowed himself to need and now Harry felt like he was _flying_.

Harry wanted to speak. The words were on his tongue and tickling against his lips. 

Harry wanted to say that Mont-de-Marsan was _his_ choice. 

Harry wanted to say that he’d never known what home felt like until he’d found it with the person he least expected. Harry wanted to say that it didn’t matter whether coincidence, luck or raw, unconscious desire had brought him to Draco’s door. 

There was so much that Harry wanted to say but he was too overwhelmed and too far gone by the feeling of Draco around him to form the words. 

Afterwards, as the two men lay lax and lazy in each other’s arms, catching their breath and laughing as Draco’s come dried on his belly, Harry felt shy. There was too much too say and it was too soon, and their short time together was disappearing more quickly than grains of sand through a timer. 

Harry filled his eyes with the sight of Draco instead. His lover’s skin was flushed and red, the bloom of his blood rushing just beneath the surface and his eyelashes feathered against his cheek, bashful and attractive. 

“I’m already exhausted,” Draco yawned, smiling. He lay back down on the crumpled sheets. “You’re going to wear me out Potter.”

~*~*~

But in the end it was Harry who fell asleep first. The wizard was overcome with the stifling warmth of the day and a dozen muscles that whined with overuse. 

Harry dozed in the middle of the afternoon, Draco’s body a solid presence behind his own.

Harry wondered how it was possible that he’d only been in Mont-de-Marsan for two short days. The rest of his life felt ethereal, like a part-forgotten dream that he’d had long ago. Harry’s life had been on hold, he thought. As slumber washed over him and made his eyes shutter closed, Harry realised that he’d been sleepwalking though his life. He’d been waiting for France. Waiting for the taste of sweet wine on his lips and Draco’s calloused fingertips ghosting over his belly. 

When Harry awoke the bedroom was shadowy and strips of pink light painted the ceiling. Outside the window the sun was setting and a small tingle of Draco’s magic still shivered at the edges of Harry’s consciousness. The blond wizard had spelled the room cool so that Harry could sleep comfortably. Harry rubbed a hand across his face and sat up carefully. His body was still lethargic and aching. 

Draco sat in the chair across from the bed. Harry realised that his lover was dozing too. There was a half-finished pencil sketch in his lap and a pencil held in slack hands. The image on the parchment pad was a sketch of him and Harry gasped, awestruck and surprised to see himself though the viewpoint of Draco’s eyes. Every knot of his ridiculously messy hair had been drawn with masterful attention. Harry could see the line of his cheekbone and the shadows of his stubble. Draco had even drawn the tiny scars of a dozen hexes and the worry lines beside his eyes. 

The amount of care that Draco had taken took Harry’s breath away. It revealed just how closely Draco had been looking. 

No other person had ever looked at Harry the way that Draco had. Other wizards had given Harry attention his whole adult life. They’d held dinners in his honour. They’d made toasts and clapped at his speeches but not one had ever seen just _him_. All those other wizards had chosen to see was their hero. Their Saviour. Their Chosen One. 

Only Draco had seen the real person beneath, perhaps for the very first time in Harry’s life. 

Harry’s hand found its way to the painful spot on his shoulder where Draco’s teeth had grazed him the night before and he caressed it, remembering how the sharp sensation had made him feel alive.

Mont-de-Marsan was where Harry had found himself and it was where he was needed to be. 

And Harry knew that he wanted Draco to have the chance to finish his drawing. 

~*~*~

Draco looked pensive as they drank their coffee the following morning. He quirked a bittersweet smile across the table towards Harry. “The bus comes back this afternoon,” Draco said, taking a sip of the black bitter drink, “but you don’t have to travel back to Bordeaux in this infernal heat if you don’t want to. I could side-Apparate you if you wanted me too.”

Harry shook his head and picked up his own mug. He needed to be brave and tell the truth. If he didn’t then he knew that he never would. 

“I was supposed to get married this week,” Harry said, the words tumbling from his mouth in a rush. “And I thought I knew my place in the world. I thought that I _knew_ what I needed… Maybe it doesn’t matter whether a coincidence, luck or my own desires brought me to Mont-de-Marsan. I made a choice, Draco. I made a choice to get on that bus… Made a choice to walk up to _your_ doorway. I made a choice to stay. We’ve all got somewhere that we need to be, Draco. Maybe this is mine.”

Draco was quiet, the muscles in his shoulders taut with tension. He shook his head slowly and looked up at Harry with eyes that shone with some unspoken emotion.

“You say that now,” Draco whispered, “but Mont-de-Marsan is my penalty. My punishment. You say that we’ve all got somewhere that we need to be? This is my _life,_ Harry. This is the life that my actions in the War dealt for me. I couldn’t ask you to stay. You’re our hero, Harry… You’re the greatest of us all. Our _Saviour_. You come here and you’ll be nothing but an exile. Everything you’ve done will be lost, Potter.” Draco rubbed his face with the heel of his hand. “You’ll be nothing more than the lover of a disgraced vineyard owner.” 

Harry reached over. He put his hand over Draco’s clenched fist and gently uncurled his fingers. 

“I had all of that,” Harry replied. “Had the fairytale existence. Had all the honours that _The Prophet_ and the Ministry could endow me with. None of those wizards ever saw me. Not the way that you do. I made the choice to come here.” Harry gave Draco his most hopeful expression. “And if you want me to, perhaps I could stay.”

“Perhaps,” Draco repeated, a small tendril of hope dawning in his eyes. 

~*~*~

The summer heat lulled Harry to sleep once more that afternoon. 

When Harry awoke it was to the feeling of Draco holding his hand as the Muggle bus spluttered its unhurried way past the Châteaux, each wheel turn taking it further towards Bordeaux. 

Draco squeezed Harry’s fingers. “Shall we go inside?” he murmured into the shell of Harry’s ear, before he stood up. “This summer heat is far too sweltering to be enjoyed.” 

Harry smiled and he followed his lover into the relative cool of the house.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading xxxx


End file.
